• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, October 11, 2011

Here’s a glimpse of the media future as envisioned by PHD:  You’re watching your favorite drama on a big 42-inch HDTV set, with your remote of choice -- your smartphone -- in hand. The phone is synched up to the TV so you have the same picture on the smaller device. The scene is a busy traffic-filled city avenue. Suddenly a boxy little urban attack vehicle -- kind of like the Mini Cooper but one you don’t recognize -- starts bobbing and weaving through the traffic in a hurry to get somewhere fast.

You’re in the market for that type of car and want to know more about it. You give it a tap on your phone. Up pops a box on the screen with details about the car and the manufacturer and local dealers. And if you want more information sent to you, it’s just a click away.

Your wife enters the room, gives you the look and you hand the phone-as-remote over to her. But before she can switch channels, the scene in the drama has changed to the lobby of a luxurious hotel where a stunning blonde who is dressed to the nines is slinking her way up to the check-in counter. Your wife can’t believe her eyes. Slung over the blonde’s shoulder is the most fabulous-looking handbag she has seen in weeks. She must have one. She taps the bag and up pops a box with a number of icons. “Buy me?” reads one. Click. Done. 

That’s just part of the not-too-distant future that PHD, a unit of Omnicom, has outlined in a new self-published book called 2016: Beyond the Horizon. It’s designed to give clients and agency employees a look at the future that they need to prepare for pretty quickly.

It also raises questions. For example, with smartphones connected to TVs in a way that enables a much more advanced level of interactive and commerce-oriented branded content, is there really a need for a national TV addressability system that’s hard-wired to cable and satellite set-top boxes?

The book is an exercise that PHD goes through each year -- looking down the road five years -- to help both clients and itself, said Mark Holden, global strategy director, PHD.  “It helps us structure the company going forward,” he said.

The book itself is futuristic. It’s filled with diagrams, illustrations and photos that an augmented reality application for smartphones called Zappar brings to life. For example, one section of the book examines the explosive growth of mobile communications around the world. Within that section is a headshot of Keith Weed, the chief marketing and communications officer at consumer goods giant Unilever. Point the phone’s camera at Weed and suddenly he’s providing what seems like video commentary on the screen.

Holden points to estimates that by 2016, half of the TV sets in use may be directly connected to the Internet and social media like Facebook. The implications for brands are profound, he says. Put a commercial on TV that offends a significant portion of the audience and the word will spread instantaneously. “Brands could be damaged very quickly and possibly irreparably,” said Holden. Or helped, if an ad is well-received. 

But the bigger point, he said, is that the notion of “campaigns,” which imply a beginning and an end will likely morph into an “always on” state of alertness for marketers. The campaign, in effect, will never end.